Ringier’s DealDey shuts down

Should we be worried about the rate established businesses are shutting down in Nigeria? Just a few days ago, Innovation-village reported that Naspers’ Career24 is shutting down its operations in Nigeria effective 1 March 2019. It is one of the leading job portals in Nigeria, and it started operations in 2014.

Earlier in 2018, the same Naspers disclosed that it was shutting down its classified website, olx.com.

Today, another prominent company has ended operations in the country and it is Ringier’s DealDey. The news of the closure of the deal’s website was confirmed by TechPoint which quoted a source that said: “The company shut down around the second week in December 2018, about the time when users last saw deals on its site and social media pages.”

DealDey was established in 2011 by Konga founder Sim Shagaya. In 2016, it was acquired by Ringier Africa Deals Group (RADG), a newly-founded joint venture between Swiss Ringier Africa AG and South African Silvertree Internet Holdings (Pty) Ltd.

Back in 2016 when the deal was announced, Ringier’s Leonard Stiegeler told Techcrunch that the acquisition was part of an expanding Africa strategy “to invest fully in four verticals within Africa: classifieds, content, digital marketing, and e-commerce.”

He added: “The country is an important entry market for e-commerce and there are significant players. We really believe the deals model that relies more on local merchants and offers both goods and services can differentiate itself from the Amazon models that Jumia and Konga are running.”

So what happened to the plans to invest in four verticals within Africa? Was DealDey worth the buy in 2016? Did the DealDey model work? There are thousands of questions which won’t probably get answered.